R.I.P. ‘Videodrome’ and ‘The Fly’ Actor Les Carlson

THR has some heartbreaking news Sunday afternoon as they report that Les Carlson, who played Barry Convex, the evil head of the Spectacular Optical Corp., in David Cronenberg’s hallucinatory sci-fi classic Videodrome, died May 3 at his home in Toronto. He was 81.

Carlson also appeared in three other Cronenberg projects — as an intimidated newspaper editor in The Dead Zone (1983); as a doctor in the Jeff Goldblum starrer The Fly (1986); and as an aging actor in Camera (2000), one of a series of short films produced for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The prolific character actor also was memorable as a pushy Christmas tree salesman in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story (1983).

A native of Mitchell, S.D., who moved to Canada in the 1960s, Carlson was nominated for a supporting actor Genie Award for his performance as the sinister Convex in Videodrome (1983).

A member of a government conspiracy to purge people who are fixated on extreme sex and violence, his character inserts a brainwashing videotape into the “VCR” in the stomach of Max (James Woods), the sleazy head of a station in search of kinky programming.

Carlson also appeared in such other films as Black Christmas (1974) and Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile (1974).